These Times

The dreaded 'L word' came through my office today. That one that is probably at least in the backs of the minds of most Americans right now...Layoff. The thing is, I wasn't worried about it at all. I know people who know people who have been laid off in the past few weeks or months and I feel bad for them, but it was one of those yeah, but it can't happen to me type of things.

Well, now it feels like it can happen to me. Seven employees from our corporate office in California and regional office in Colorado lost their jobs last week and two more yesterday. My Big Boss (highest ranking person that I work with directly) sat down with me and a couple of other people in my region to assure us, so that we can pass that assurance on to our coworkers. Unfortunately, I came out of it way more concerned than I had been, especially since I didn't even know about the layoffs before she told me.

My job is probably safe. Let me just put that out there. Basically, one of three things could happen. The most likely is that the company will pull through just fine and I'll keep my job and hopefully move up, in time. There is also a good chance that the company will pull through, but there will be more layoffs before things start looking up. If that is the case, I have the benefit of working in the most successful region in the whole company, having a reputation for being very good at my job and not having a job that would easily be considered fluff. However, if cutbacks have to be made in my region, my position my be on the short list of those to eliminate. Even if that happened, though, I've been assured that they'd try to find me another position within the company, but it might mean relocating. The least likely, but possible situation is that the company will fold all together or sell off this region, either of which would mean somebody else taking over. If that is the case, they will likely keep a lot of the on-site staff, but I doubt there would be a position for me.

There are a lot of "ifs" and I'm really not thinking I'll be losing my job any time soon. But the possibility is much more in my consciousness than it was a day ago. I'm one of the lucky ones who has enough of a support network that even if I were to be out of work for a while, I would not likely go under. Many, many people (my own coworkers) have not been so lucky during this hard time and I am really feeling for them today.

In The Beginning

Three years ago today I met a very nice, slightly older (3 1/2 years) man with whom I had an instant connection and easy conversation. I was not looking for love and neither was he. I felt I was too young to meet The One and I was working two full time jobs at 82 hours a week, plus taking classes part-time. I really did not have time for a boyfriend. He had broken off an engagement only a few months before and was casually dating somebody else. But we could not deny that we had a lot in common and enjoyed each other's company. Over the next few weeks we exchanged many emails, talked on the phone regularly and got together for coffee, as friends. Boy did I have no idea what I was in for...

Mysterious ways, right?

After my cruddy day at work yesterday, I was not really looking forward to the meeting I had committed to attending at church last night. We have a program, in partnership with another local congregation, called LoveWorks that aims to support and nourish children of incarcerated parents. The main function of the program is that people can volunteer to mentor a child with one or both parents in prison through Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS). When I found out about it, I knew that this was the perfect opportunity for me to serve my church and my community.

I got my application in to BBBS just this week and the woman from church who organizes it asked me if I'd like to come to a mentors meeting last night to learn more about what they do. It was a wonderful meeting. Both heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time. Everybody went around and gave an update of how their 'Little' is doing. Most of the mentors have been doing it since the program started, so they have had the same Little for the past five or six years- seeing and talking to these now high school teenagers at least three times a month since they were just in elementary school. Some of the kids are blossoming and thriving. Then there were others who are struggling - family is having financial problems, getting involved in gang activity, clinical depression - so we discussed how their Big could help them through whatever they are dealing with, what resources there are, etc.

I had no idea how involved you really get in these kid's lives by taking on the responsibility. You get to know their friends and family. Some people go to the school when there is a removal hearing to suspend the child, call the guidance counselor to talk about what the kid needs to do to graduate on time, attend choir concerts alongside the parents or grandparents to show love and support. It is a much heavier responsibility than I was imagining and there are many more challenges.

Frankly, I was a little scared. Would I know what to do if my Little told me she was going to join a gang? What if he was suicidal? Can I be of comfort and help if her mother is getting beat up by her boyfriend? What would I say to him if his father were executed? These are all things that the people in that room have had to face with the child they are mentoring. Luckily, there is a lot of support from the LoveWorks community. There are training seminars; all of the mentors support and help each other; there is an advisory board that volunteers can go to with questions about school issues, emotional issues, etc.

I know that it will be a challenging learning experience, but I think the reward will be huge! I cannot wait to actually get my match and begin to get to know a special little girl or boy.

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As I was driving home from meeting last night, I was thinking to myself how nice it would be to get home and curl up in my warm bed and read for a bit before going to sleep. Then I thought of something I wanted to remember to look up online first when I got home. Of course, I quickly remembered I no longer have a computer at home and it suddenly hit me:

I have been thinking recently about my computer habits. I spend eight hours a day on the computer at work and then come home and can still entertain myself for a long time with the vastness of the Internet. I definitely take advantage of it for mindless entertainment and time passing. There are lots of other things I like to do in my free time - read books, talk to actual people in real life, take my dog to the park or on walks, leave my apartment - but I'm lazy by nature so I easily succumb to the temptation of spending way too much time on the computer instead.

This is not quality time and when I die, I am not going to regret that I didn't see as many Lolcats as I could have. On the other hand, I often feel guilt or regret when I find myself surfing rather than doing something more meaningful. I was actually thinking last week that it would be very good for me to take a week-long fast from the computer at home. I have to use it at work and even have time during the work day to keep up with plenty of my personal stuff, so I really felt I should see what good it might do me to ban it at home for a bit. I was going to do it this week.

Of course by the time Sunday or Monday had rolled around, I had given myself some really good excuse (which I cannot even remember now) for why this was not a good week to do that. I think somebody else had a different idea in mind and took a really drastic approach to making me live up to my vow. God sure has a wicked sense of humor.

Warning: Really Long Whine Fest Ahead

What a day this has been! I have been in a bit of a funk lately and finally I felt like I was coming out of it. Yesterday was a really good day. I accomplished some of the things I'd been putting off; I got in a decent workout; I had a really good time with my dad. By 8:00 I had settled down on the couch to watch the debate. After that, things started going back down hill fast.

It has nothing to do with the debate itself, I'm trying really hard not to go into politics on here. The problem began with the fact that I had to watch it on my laptop. I don't have cable and only get TV reception for the local Fox station, which was showing baseball. Luckily, a couple of networks were streaming it live, so I tuned into CBS and was all set. My laptop has been acting a bit wonky lately. I've been having lots of pop-ups, even with the blockers on, but scans for viruses were clear and having it checked out by a professional is just another one of those things I've been putting off. I was watching on full screen and as the debate was winding down found that I was not able to go back to normal or close the screen. After trying all of the tricks I know, to no avail, I finally just had to force it to turn off. When I turned it back on, I got a Fatal System Error message. Yup. My [less than two year old] laptop has totally crashed. I don't know if I actually had a bug or what, but I only pray that my warranty will cover it. Thanks to ever responsible Johnathan for making me buy the extended plan.

Fast-forward to this morning. I get up, planning on a trip to the apartment fitness center before work. Thankfully I had cause to run the sink before I left, because I had no water pressure - just a tiny trickle. Apparently a main has burst, so it had to be shut off. What a stinky mess I would have been! Instead I was able to crawl back into bed for a little while longer and come to work only moderately musty.

Work has been stressful "lately." By "lately," I mean the last 9 months or so. My company is having issues. Since we were getting so many calls to various offices from different people about the problems, it was decided that things would be "easier" if everybody directed those complaint calls to me. By "easier," I mean for everybody but me. So, I get anywhere from two to two dozen calls a day from people who hate my company and hate me by association, because they feel like they are getting screwed over by all of us. Honestly, I don't blame them, which I think makes it even more horrible having to deal with them all the time and make excuses and try to convince them hold off further action. The people in charge keep telling us "things should all be sorted out in [insert time frame]" or "it'll be taken care of by [random date]" or "we'll know something definite on [pick a day]." So I keep getting hope, only to have that time come and nothing has been rectified. Today was one of those days. We were supposed to have definite dates for all of this to be fixed by the end of this week. As of this morning, the new "we'll know something" date is October 28th.

Note: I really love the people that I work with, including my bosses. I have a lot of faith that this company will pull through the mess it is in and become something great and I look forward to being a part of it when that day comes. If I didn't really believe in it, I wouldn't still be here.

When I'm at work I keep my personal email account up, as well as my work email and various other work and non-work sites. This morning I had a message in my personal email from a Facebook friend with a video. "Cool" I thought. *click* I'm redirected to what appears to be a video hosting site and told that my Flash Player is not up-to-date. Not surprising, since most of the stuff on this computer is not the latest version, so I click to get the update. It never did load, and I started to question the whole thing, so I gave up. Then somebody else tells me that they had gotten some weird Facebook message from me about a video, but it was poorly spelled, so they knew it couldn't be me (ha!). Apparently lots of people have been hacked/spammed. And now my work computer is acting funny- super.

I shut down all Internet while I try to make sure that everything is clear of viruses and such. Then I get a call from another office that an email has gone out to the whole company saying that a bunch of reports that were due yesterday (many of them from my area and my responsibility) were not received. It always sucks to get called out in front of others, much less the whole company, but the real kicker is that I did turn in the reports yesterday. I was able to forward the original email that had them, so I could prove to the person requesting them that I'd done it, but it doesn't take back that everybody thinks I didn't. It's been a busier than usual day anyway, and I just have all this extra stuff on top of it. Oh, and, just now this minute my printer/scanner/copier started making a clicking noise that cannot possibly be good.

If I might make a point in all of this complaining it is this: I definitely believe that God tests us. There are always going to be hard times and it frequently seems like all of the bad happens at once. But, good times will undoubtedly follow. I think both of them are tests. The point is not how much things are or are not going your way, but what you do with the hand you are dealt. I'd like to say I'm not responsible for all of the cruddy things that have happened in the past 24-hours, but I also have to admit that I'm not responsible when things are going well either. That's just how life is. I have to try to deal with both the good and the bad as humbly and faithfully as I can. No one day (or week or year) is going to make or break me. Only the persistence of my faith can do that.

Daddy's Girl

My dad is great. He is pretty much everything I think of when I think of what a dad should be. We haven't always been as close as I would like, because we haven't lived in the same city since I was seven, but he's definitely always made a great effort. My whole childhood, he would write letters to us every week, as well as calling a few times throughout the week. Even today getting something in the mail besides bills and junk is really nice, but as a kid, having mail just for me every week was thrilling!

Now that I'm all grown up, I see him even less often than before. He still calls me a couple of times a week and we meet for dinner between Austin and Boerne at least once every couple of months. It would be nice to think that I didn't need my daddy anymore, but I do. He still takes care of me in ways that only he can.

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I have this truck. I got it when I was 16 and drove it until I bought my new car last December. I was never terribly fond of this truck - it was not my choice - and did not take very good care of it. When it came time to buy my new car, I knew that it would not be worth enough to really help me, so I didn't bother trying to trade it in. I had money for a down payment, so I decided I'd just sell the truck on my own.

Well, the truck has just been sitting, ignored, for 10 months. It has a flat tire (whether from not being driven or from a hole, I don't know) and it won't start because the battery is run down from lack of use. I want to sell it, I need to sell it, but there are a few things I have to do to be able to sell it and the whole process is daunting and seems like a pain in the butt. It would be nice to have whatever small amount I could make from the sell, but I don't need the money, so I just keep putting it off.

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My dad is going to be in town today on business. We decided we'd have our semi-monthly dinner tonight, since he'd be here anyway. This morning he called to say that he'll probably be done with business about an hour before I get off work, so he's going to fix my flat and charge up my battery for me. This has given me new resolve to get the truck sold. I'm sending off the paperwork I need to take care of today. Hopefully that means I can have it sold within the next month-and-a-half or so and have the money for Christmas shopping. My dad is great!

RIP, Old Friend

I like things a certain way. Have I mentioned that? Get used to it. I'm not big on change unless I initiate it. I love to mix things up when I feel like it, but if somebody else puts it on me, I resist.

I got a new check card in the mail last week. My current one expires next month. I love my current card. It is the first card I got on my first bank account of my very own. I've had it for years and years. It is all worn in (almost to the point of being un-swipable). Most importantly, I have the number down pat. I could rattle that off better than my ABC's. My fingers typed it automatically with each online purchase.

When I got the envelope from the bank and could feel a hard spot, I knew it was a new card. Blegh. It's all slick and shiny. It has no character. It doesn't fit into my vintage sense of style. And it has a stupid new number to memorize. Why can't the number stay the same? As soon as I got it, I tucked it in my wallet behind the old and haven't thought much of it since. Well, the bank just called and said I need to activate it to avoid service interruption. So I say "Goodbye old card. You served me well. Thank you for all of the hours of mindless shopping you facilitated."

What's In A Name?

Johnathan and I aren't really big on nicknames. Occasionally I'll refer to him as Johnny, John-John, John Boy or J-Man when I am being goofy, but he has always just gone by the full version of his name and I almost always just call him Johnathan. Likewise, he calls me by my name most of the time. In fact, he uses my name more than any person I have ever met. In the beginning it actually bothered me that he so often put my name at the end of a sentence. I thought he was being condescending. Like if he was trying to make a point and I was misunderstanding he'd say "that isn't what I'm saying, Elyse," and for whatever reason, my name in that sentence made me feel like a child being chastised. But in time I came to realize that he didn't just use my name when frustrated. He also says things like "I love you, Elyse" or "thank you, Elyse." And he uses everybody's name when he talks to them; he is not being patronizing, it's just one of his traits. But my point is that aside from calling each other "Baby" or by our given names, we have never been too big on nicknames and terms of endearment.

However, ever since he bought the a video of It's Flash Beagle, Charlie Brown on an eBay auction, because it was one of his favorite things to watch as a child, I have taken to calling Johnathan "My Sweet Babboo." It's Sally's nickname for her true love, Linus and apparently (thank you Wikipedia) it was what creator Charles Schulz's wife called him. When I heard that, it was just too disgustingly precious not to inflict on him. Linus is not much of a fan of this moniker or the girl who uses it, but [I like to think that] Johnathan doesn't mind it. At least once in the Peanuts series, Sally also said she was Linus's "Sweet Babbooette." I guess that makes them a couple of Babboos.

When I decided to create this blog I wanted the URL to be something that stood for both of us and was personal and it couldn't be taken already by one of the other millions of bloggers out there. I can change the header/title of the page as often as the mood strikes me, but the address would be permanent. So (not that anybody asked) that is why this website is TwoBabboos. And, come to think of it, maybe the fact that all of the titles of Peanuts cartoons he watched as a child ended with Charlie Brown's name had some influence on Johnathan's habit of using peoples' names the way he does.